THE  NAVAJO 
MEDICINE  MAN 


GAN  you  imagine  how  it  would  seem 
when  37ou  are  sick  to  have  a big  man 
come  and  sing  over  you  all  night  and 
instead  of  feeling  your  pulse  and  looking  at 
your  tongue,  make  queer  motions  with  sticks 
and  feathers  around  your  head  ? 


A Navajo  Hogan 

If  you  were  a Navajo  Indian  child,  you 
would  be  given  very  little  medicine,  and  instead 
of  being  tucked  away  cozily  in  a soft,  warm  bed 


to  rest  and  get  well,  you  would  have  to  lie  on  a 
buffalo  robe  or  blanket  thrown  down  on  the 
dirt  floor  of  a hogan.  Then  your  friends  would 
sit  around  on  the  floor  beside  you  and  join  the 
medicine  man  in  his  strange,  wild  songs  during 
the  whole  night  or  maybe  for  two  or  three 
nights.  There  would  be  no  organ,  no  piano, 
no  musical  instrument  of  any  kind  but  some  old 
Indian  would  hold  a dry  gourd  in  his  hand  and 
shake  it  all  the  time,  to  make  the  seeds  rattle 
and  so  keep  time  to  the  music. 

Sometimes  the  medicine  man  would  put  a 
pinch  of  some  kind  of  powder  on  your  head  and 
arms  and  feet,  and  once  in  a while  give  you 
something  to  drink  from  a little  cup,  and  some- 
times he  has  a lot  of  corncobs  and  waves  them 
in  the  air  one  after  another;  or  he  waves 
sticks  and  eagle  feathers  trimmed  with  bits  of 
bright  yarn  and  little  shells.  At  other  times 
he  holds  a small  tumble  weed  on  the  head  and 
shoulders  of  one  who  is  getting  well  and  makes 
a strange  sound  with  his  lips — a sound  that 
makes  one  think  of  the  droning  of  a bagpipe. 

The  medicine  men  are  not  only  the  doctors 
but  the  religious  teachers  of  the  Indians  as 
well.  Sometimes  their  singing  and  ceremonies 
are  for  the  sick  and  sometimes  they  are  in  honor 
of  their  gods,  for  the  Navajos  worship  a great 
many  strange  gods. 

One  religious  ceremony  that  few  white 


people  ever  see  is  the  sand  painting  which  is 
made  on  the  floor  of  the  hogan.  The  floor  is 
swept  very  clean,  then  the  medicine  man  sifts 
earth  of  different  colors  through  his  fingers  and 
so  makes  a picture  on  the  floor.  The  picture 
does  not  stay  there  long  for  the  floor  is  soon 
swept  again  and  the  family  life  goes  on  as 
usual. 

But  in  spite  of  the  bad  work  of  the  medicine 
men,  the  Spirit  of  God  is  already  at  work  in  the 
hearts  of  the  Navajos  and  their  children.  One 
of  them  has  for  three  years  sent  his  little  son 
and  daughter  to  the  mission  school.  The  boy 
was  sweet  tempered  from  the  first  but  the  girl 
was  very  cross  and  cruel  and  we  thought  that 
because  of  her  brutal  treatment  of  a little  girl 
younger  than  herself,  she  would  have  to  go 
home  and  stay.  But  during  her  third  year  of 
school,  she  has  become  sweet  and  lovable  and 
without  knowing  it,  is  proving  to  all  who  know 
her  what  God  can  do  in  the  heart  of  the  child 
of  a savage. 

One  day  during  a rainstorm  we  found 
shelter  in  the  home  of  a medicine  man.  He 
was  very  kind  and  nice  to  us  and  did  all  he 
could  to  make  our  stay  pleasant.  After  a while 
he  took  down  from  the  wall  a bundle  of  the 
queer  things  used  in  his  ceremonies  over  the 
sick.  He  carefully  untied  the  deerskin  wrapper 
and  showed  us  the  sticks  and  eagle  feathers 


trimmed  with  small  shells  and  bits  of  bright 
colored  yarn.  There  was  a sly  twinkle  in  his 
eye  and  he  afterwards  told  us  that  he  knew  his 
work  would  not  cure  the  sick,  but  so  long  as 
other  medicine  men  made  money  in  that  way, 
he  would  do  so  too.  One  day  his  little  girl 
caught  a bat  and  as  he  held  it  up  by  the  wings 
he  said  “ uzza  ” (medicine),  so  giving  us  to  un- 
derstand that  he  would  use  the  wings  in  mak- 
ing medicine. 

We  told  him  of  the  Great  Physician,  of 
him  who  is  “mighty  to  save,”  and  after 
thinking  over  the  matter  and  talking  about  it 
with  his  friends,  he  said  that  we  must  be  right. 

Shortly  before  his  death,  which  occurred  a 
few  months  later,  he  sent  for  the  missionary  to 
come  to  see  him  at  his  hogan.  Who  knows  but 
that  in  his  last  hours  this  Navajo  medicine 
man  believed  in  the  “ Great  Physician  ? ” 

Bertha  A.  Little. 

369 -1st  Ed.— 5,  1907. 

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